Our Team

Help,  Have Fun,  Join In.

This document forms the ethos of our community and team spirit.

Do YOU have a sense of humour?

Do you like working with people?

Want to Join a team of talented people ?

Would you like to become a member of London City Support?

LONDON CITY VOLUNTARY ROLE APPLICATION

"London City is committed to helping new users enjoy the best initial experience possible when they visit Second Life for the first time".

We usually recruit from those who visit the regions and are already part of this community.   Hiring unknown agents is not good business practice, so if you want to be involved, get involved ahead of your application, so we have a chance to know who you are.

Please bear in mind we receive many applications and we choose from those who best suit our needs at the time. Please do not apply if refusal is likely to offend you.

Before you apply..  we are looking for sole agents, ie, we do not usually recruit groups of friends or long-term close friends of our existing team, as this can cause cliques, which we try to avoid.

That said, we encourage our Support Team to recognize emerging talent. You you might like to reach out to one of our team to register your interest or ask them about what is involved.

You do not need to be an expert, but you need to be pleasant to our visitors and know your way around the estate.

JOB TITLE: LONDON SUPPORT      (JOB FAMILY:  GREETER)

PAY: Voluntary

AGE:  You must be at least 45 days old to be considered for Support staff.

HOURS: Approximately what sort of SL times are you available.  What day is best?

PROSPECTS:   Every member of the team begins in Support.  Our region managers, club hosts, club managers, performers etc etc, started as Support staff.   We do not guarantee that by joining Support that you will automatically go on to other duties, but to be considered for other roles, starting in Support is vital.

ROLE:  The role of 'Support' is to be a trusted source of information and to help new residents learn fundamental skills.

This may include how to use their inventory, purchase new items from the freebie shop,  block users, unpack and rez, whilst also promoting the facilities within London City.

We do not spoon-feed new residents.  We do not pass inventory or landmarks.  We teach them how to use 'SL Search', whilst remaining mindful that the merchants of London City pay for these regions so where possible, we will encourage local shopping within the estate.

This role can be tougher than it sounds when you are surrounded by a lot of older avatars, 'noob chasers' and new user Alts.  You need to be able to distinguish "the wood from the trees", and to concentrate on the new users who need help.

Often it can be thankless when an observer only sees your actions in Local chat, without any idea of the background or your conduct in IM.  But when the new user you have been helping, genuinely thanks you for your time and effort, it makes it all worth while.

You must have the ability  to ignore  experienced but non-progressive players who come for the drama, rise above the baits thrown at you and have the ability to realise when someone is trying to manipulate you because they have taken a dislike to someone else.

You are an ambassador for London City.  We seek to recruit those with a genuine drive to help, not  those who want to police the regions. This is a support, not a governance role.

ENCOURAGE: Exploration of London City.  We have many sights to see, areas to explore and stores to shop in.   Never send new residents straight to the market place.  It is important that they learn how to use the search function in-world.  Whilst Market Place is a great resource, it is also the primary reason why so few regions for shopping exist in Second Life any more.   A good team member will know the products on sale and be able to recommend stores to people.   You will need to know everything the estate yourself, in order to recommend activities here.  So please explore!

RETENTION:  If you are showing a new resident how to use search, please ensure they have first created a landmark for London City, so they can return.  Please make them aware of themed events, club times and concerts, so they know when to expect interaction with other users in a party environment.

                                      

  

SKILLS and COMPETENCES:

LONDON CITY needs HELP from those who will try their best to ensure NEW RESIDENTS receive the SUPPORT they need to in order to PROGRESS and learn the SKILLS to assist them in this virtual environment, whilst maintaining a FUN and INFORMATIVE ATMOSPHERE ensuring that LONDON CITY remains at the heart of NEW USER EXPERIENCE.

Some visitors will use the service as a drop-in centre for information and catch-up and require little assistance. Our main thrust of tuition will be to offer support to those who would benefit from a more step-by-step tutorial until PROFICIENT.  We will be tolerant and patient above all other qualities.

For this role, you need to be immensely patient, fun, friendly, spontaneous, level-headed, knowledgeable and be able to juggle these skills and competencies to impart vital information.

If you are someone who thrives on challenges and possess a sense of humour which allows you to smile at irony and not be wound up by the classroom clown, then this could be a mutually beneficial relationship with you and London City.

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Please complete this application fully.   We do receive many half filled applications and due to time constraints, we are unable to reply to those people who merely send back this form without completing it!

Please do not apply if you are less than 45 days old.

8< ------  APPLICATION  8< ------

 You may clip out this section out and return it to us.  Please name the notecard Support Application and add your name

(1)  SL Account Name:

(please ensure this is your user name not your display name)

(2)  SL Age in days:

(3)  Country of Residence:

(4)  Languages:

(5)  Are you able to commit to a regular day or shift at least once a week for 3 consecutive hours?

(6)  Day(s) of week you would be available to work as Support:

(7)  Hours (please use  SL time) that you are available to help:         FROM:        TO:

(8)  This is your chance to say why you are suited for this role and why do you want to be  London City  Support staff:

(9) Anything else you want to add?

(10) Disclosure:  If you work at clubs, info hubs, other regions etc, this does not preclude you from volunteering at London City.  Please tell us about the other places or potential conflicts of interest that we should know about?

(11) Please sign this with your account (legacy) name and date it here:

8< ------  APPLICATION  8< ------

About London Support

As Support you will be friendly and approachable at all times.  If you are not feeling friendly or you have had a stressful day, please do not Support for that day.

Your job is to assist others to take the first steps in Second Life and to get the most out of the London City regions.

We believe it to be a likely conflict of interest if you are acting as Support at multiple venues outside of London City and request that you give full disclosure about other places you work for.

Although you will advise others about Terms of Service (TOS), Community Standards (CS) and the London City covenant, you are NOT here to act as an enforcement officer, or to punish people.    From time to time we have witnessed people who have joined mostly to discipline others.  When this happens, we remove them from team as they are not here for the benefit of the new visitors.

What is a Support Agent?

You are usually one of the first people a new resident will meet.  It is vital you make a good impression.  This person is brand new.  If they don't enjoy their first experience, they may never return.  We view all residents to London City as potential customers in future life, who will visit our clubs, buy items from our merchants, set up a shop, or rent a house from us.  A new resident will be born without any money and therefore not seem as though they are a customer, but they are... it just so happens that today they are window shopping.

You are in control of the situation, you should lead the new resident, they dont lead you. If a conversation starts to go down the wrong path,  you have to bring it back on track.

Usually, most unpleasant situations can be dealt with by explaining to a resident that they haven't beamed into World of Warcraft and that Second Life is a community of people who make friends, travel, build, buy, sell and act sociably with each other.

Sometimes people do just come to cause trouble and this is when, after trying to talk them back onto the straight and narrow, you will Abuse Report them (AR).

From time to time team members are given the additional powers of Eject and Freeze.  Do not rely on this as it is continually reviewed and only granted at times of very high traffic or when the estate is being abused.

Never use either Eject or Freeze unless you have first spoken to the resident and secondly AR'd them and thirdly, you can see no other solution.

Please, always try to reason things out.  The moment you press the Eject button, you have lost the argument.  You have given up trying to negotiate.   This is a reputation we are keen to avoid.

Here are some things you can use as a first line of defense against people trying to annoy you:

People will annoy you.  MUTE them.  It is a wonderful tool and you need never hear from them again.

People will bump into you.  Get yourself a lock device or sit on something.  You cannot be pushed when you are sitting down.   Please /NEVER/ use a shield that fries people if they bump into you.  They are considered as a weapon.

People will annoy you with particles.  Turn off particles if they annoy.  Go to your client, choose View, Hide Particles.

Someone is trying to bug you for the sake of it, put yourself in Busy mode.

HOW TO MUTE A RESIDENT

This can be achieved by right clicking on the resident, bring up the pie menu and scroll around the menu to the mute option.

HOW TO ABUSE REPORT

ABUSE REPORTS - COMMONLY CALLED - AR's

Whenever you see anyone violate the Terms Of Service (TOS), or the Community standards (CS or Big Six), or the Welcome Area Guidelines, you should file an abuse report. And so should every resident present.  You should show them how to Abuse Report.

Select a category - if in doubt, choose OTHER.

If it's an object, use the blue button above the category box, and then left click on the object, if you can. That will include details about the object, it's exact location and the owner.

Fill in the summary as clear and short and simple as you can. Include the offender's name.  Try to be clear:

Joe Public, repeated bad language, shoving and nudity.

Sue Avatar, weapons fire in no-combat zone.

Rather than..

Joe Public - being a idiot

In the details section, put in anything you think is relevant. You can include chat history.

If it's visual, you can use the INCLUDE SCREENSHOT checkbox. The screenshot is whatever your camera was looking at when you opened the report window.

>>  Teach others to MUTE, TURN OFF PARTICLES AND HOW TO ABUSE REPORT.

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REMOVING RESIDENTS HUD

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EJECT  &  GROUP KICKS / TEMP BANS

This facility is ONLY given to experienced Team Members.  It is not standard inventory given to all staff, please do not apply to team thinking you will get this permission.

When using this device, you agree that you have already made all reasonable attempts to diffuse a situation.   Banning people because they are personally annoying you is not acceptable.  For minor disruptions you will show others how to mute/block/derender.

Banning people ups the ante and can cause more serious  incidents.

Please IM users, do not use Local Chat for issues pertaining to governance.

If a user is NON-DAMAGING to the estate, you should EJECT them multiple times before resorting to banning.

A non-damaging user may be: Excessive Gestures, Argumentative, Playing music over mic, shouting, defaming, fanaticism.  In extreme cases these users might also be considered damaging.  You need to weigh it up!

A user is ALWAYS considered damaging if they use: Graphics Crashers, Group Inviters, TP Lures, Distributing suspect items, Advertising,  inciting others to spoil enjoyment, obviously hateful towards the estate and staff,  mass spamming, friendship spamming to lure, vampire biting, sending phishing links (these are different from youtube links!).

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(E)ject   - Enter the user UUID and the HUD will remove the user by:

i. Sending the user Home.   If the user has home set in London City, it will then;

ii. Teleport them to a Safe Hub.

When ejected a user can return.  They are not banned, nor are they removed from groups.

You may need to eject a user if they are constantly running people over, if they are in a vehicle in the hub and are AFK for a prolonged time.  (Ejecting also removes the temp rez items).

As always, you agree when you use this device that you have made all reasonable attempts to contact the user, unless it is blatant disruption aimed at spoiling other peoples enjoyment.  When that happens, it is permitted to eject without making prior contact.

When all else has failed, or in your view the user is Damaging to the estate, you may need to use the Ban option.

You MUST remember that Bans (on any level from local to estate) kick the user from EVERY SINGLE GROUP operated by London City and as such, we consider that user lost forever, no matter how short the duration of the ban.

(B)an   - Enter the UUID and the HUD

The amount of days:    0 = 1 hour,   or  1, 2 ,3, 4,  etc days..

The reason for the ban.  You have 128 characters, please describe what happened.   "Troll" is not considered a descriptive reason.

The one hour option may be of use for a persistent user who has worn out their welcome and won't keep away despite multiple ejects.   Even so, remember that a 1 hour ban, Kicks from all groups.

Note that we do not remove users just because they are a troll.  Like it or not, trolls are part of second life.  Our job is not to sanitise the world for visitors.  Likewise, sometimes people are boisterous.  This does not make them trouble, it just makes them loud.  We do not work in a library, if you or others are having a bad day, take the day off, it's better for everyone.   Remember, teach people how to Mute/Block/Derender.  We're not the police.

Always be mindful of older players with Payment Info on file and probably lots of friends in their lists.  These residents will always tell their friends of their experience in London City.  One mistake by us can alienate whole swathes of people.

Please do not get used as a pawn or be governed by visitors who are aware of your ban rights, to exact revenge on people they personally do not like.

We reserve the right to ask you about your bans and the strategy behind them.

COMMON SENSE CLAUSE

Earlier in this tutorial we mentioned you should always contact a user by IM before removal.  There are obvious exceptions.   When an avatar is obviously here only to disrupt with spam, racist ranting, wearing a sim sized object.  You do not need to contact them.  The priority is to remove them.

ABUSE OF POWER

Our team must be accountable for their actions.

We encourage our users to file a ticket with us when they believe they have witnessed a deliberate abuse of power:

EXTRACT FROM COVENANT

London City is a diverse and vibrant community of varied visitors, socialising and enjoying daily events, hangouts, pubs, clubs, shopping and concerts.

When visiting the community we ask that you be tolerant of individuality, not to abuse, attack, impede, bite, excessive gesture, or cause annoyance that impacts the enjoyment of other visitors. Common decency is expected.

No advertising, group invites, carding up, mass teleports, no spamming of any kind, including spam friending, object "presents" to visitors, titler advertising or any other means to circumvent our advertising policy.  Legitimate advertising is available via paid advertising boards around the regions. 

Please do not use orb shield devices.  If a new resident bumping you causes annoyance, please get a move-lock from the freebie store. Alternatively, move away from areas intended for New Residents.

Due to the nature of phishing links and the vulnerability of new users, we request that you do not post URL’s in group or local chat. 

We respectfully ask that Owner, Manager and Staff tags from other regions are not worn in London City.  This is a mutual courtesy. We do not wear our staff tags in your regions and ask that you show a similar respect in ours.

Access to the London City regions is by open invitation. We reserve the right to remove anyone at any time, who in our view, works against the spirit of the community.

SUPPORT

London City operates a team of trained support staff to help residents.  You can identify our staff by their London Support tag.  Since we have our own support team, we have no need of third party helpers, mentors, vigilante, security or other support groups.  We would appreciate it, if "helpers/mentors", untagged before coming to these regions so as to not confuse others.   We remove those using bogus Support tags, without prior warning.  Our staff can be identified by “London City Greeters" and/or "Mainland London Staff" and/or "London City Gateway"  groups appearing in their profile.

COMMUNITY GATEWAY

London City operates an official Community  Gateway region, "London City Gateway".  Its sole purpose is for the orientation of new residents joining Second Life.  As such, these new residents are given priority to the gateway region.  At times of high useage, or during tutorials,  experienced residents will be asked to leave the region. The Gateway ends as the new resident is led out of the Gateway region and into the Hub area of 'London City'. New residents are encouraged to integrate with the community in the London City region.

DIVERSITY

In real life, We are based in the UK, where life is liberal and accepting of people's differences.  We bring these values with us to London City in Second Life, and trust that visitors will embrace this society without bigotry.

We recognise the differences that exist between people beyond age and experience, such as gender, race, ethnicity, mental and physical ability, creed, colour, caste, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, education, marital, financial and other statuses.  We believe that the differences and varied perspectives of life that people bring with them, has a positive impact on the community and is a strength to be embraced.  We will work to protect these basic freedoms and for those whose actions denigrate others, the invitation to visit will be withdrawn.

DISRUPTIVE RESIDENTS

London City is a privately owned estate. Access to this estate is not a rite of passage.  We are not obligated to host any avatar we do not wish to.

London City will not host avatars that cause sustained disruption.  This includes those with antisocial or abusive behaviour, members of groups and estates known to be disruptive in London City;  constant excessive render weights, excessively annoying for whatever reason, and those who are broadly offensive, continuously flouting covenant, vigilantes or hate groups, or those who are damaging to the performance and enjoyment of these regions.

You have freedom of expression to discuss the subjects you wish to talk about.   However this does not extend to subject matter and behaviour that is obviously going to cause distress or broad offense to the majority of other users or denigrate the estate and its members and staff .  Expression of extremist fanaticism of political and religious views or avatars that represent extremism or fanaticism, that is likely to be distressing to the majority of residents, is considered disruptive behaviour.

We do not host "Forever Noob"accounts years into their gameplay.  You need to update your avatar or switch from your 'alt' to your main.  This is to preserve the immersive and progressive experience for everyone.

Please refrain from using avatars of an unreasonable size.

ACCOUNTABILITY

   

If you believe a member of our team has acted inappropriately, been unfair, intolerant or has acted outside of this covenant, please make your complaint the support portal: http://www.mainlandlondon.blogspot.co.uk/p/support-ticket.html

Please do not use IM or Local Chat for issues pertaining to governance.

NUDITY

Whilst nudity is not prohibited in Moderate regions, it is discouraged. Nudity (genitals obviously on display) is not permitted in General regions.  Sexual predators, pests, states of arousal or content that is broadly offensive or distressing  is not permitted.   Please report prostitutes/webcam-girls to a member of London Support.

CHILD AVATARS

No role playing.  Child avatars are not permitted in any regions we designate as Adult.  Whilst permitted elsewhere, we strongly discourage the use of child avatars, given the obvious connotations and predisposition to abuse.

VAMPIRES/LYCANS AND PYRAMID SCHEMES

No Role play. No Biting, No vampire/lycan activities, including promoting. We will remove those who role play, recruit to group, teleport other users or cause a nuisance.  No Pyramid/Get Rich Quick schemes.

AD BOARDS

Please keep imagery and descriptions within the context of the region maturity rating.

CONTESTS

Vote rigging, logging accounts to vote for you and canvassing others to vote for you is deemed as cheating.  If a pattern emerges where a regular entrant is inactive throughout a contest, they will be removed from the board.  To give everyone a fair chance,  if you regularly win contests, you may be asked to sit out some contests to give others an even chance. 

Our staff and team are not permitted to enter contests including free-to-play sploders. Sometimes when few people have joined a contest  "free for all" may be declared and only at that point will our team join in.  Contests are for visitors, not staff.

VOICE

Voice is enabled so residents can enjoy conversations with each other.   However a certain etiquette is expected.   Be respectful. Do not cause deliberate annoyance.  Please do not hog the voice channel.  Remember to give other people a chance to join in too. Those who "key-up and go for it", without ever pausing for breath or giving way to other people, should be encouraged to give it a periodic rest.

WORKING WITH US

Each venue has its own application procedure.  Please contact the club manager to discuss vacancies.

We hope that you will enjoy working with us and stay forever.   We also recognise and respect that some people are more transient than others and will leave and move on for various reasons, including circumstances and career moves.

Parting is such sweet sorrow.   Whether you loved it or hated it; endings are inevitably a time of mixed emotion and heightened sensitivity.

We ask that if our working relationship ends for whatever reason, good or bad, that both parties have a chance to reflect, giving everyone time to adjust to change.  As a sign of an amicable parting, we request that if you leave the team, you do not visit the estate for 21 days.  This cool down period helps to avoid inadvertently causing distress to each other.

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Thank you to Rails Bailey for his contribution to this article.

This forms part of the creative works and intellectual property of London City Estate. You many not copy, distribute, modify, adapt or translate any content of this document. It is not available under the Creative Commons or any other license. (c)2010,11,12,13,14,15,16 Torric Rodas, All rights reserved.